A recently growing problem in retail store environments has been the introduction of debit or credit-card skimming devices installed on the store network, such as in point-of-sale terminals for example. These skimming devices can be installed illicitly by criminals to capture the card information of customers as they swipe their card to make a payment to the store. This card information can be transmitted directly to the criminal via, for instance a Short Message Service (SMS) message or a General Packet Radio Service, 3rd Generation, Long Term Evolution (GPRS/3G/LTE) data connection, or more typically stored on flash memory in the skimmer device itself, to be retrieved later via a short-range wireless connection such as Bluetooth®. Illegal skimmers using Bluetooth® have been particularly popular with criminals recently because of the low power requirements, reasonable range, and readily available standard circuit chipsets, interoperable devices, and control software.
Presently, store administrators address this problem by walking around the store with a handheld communication device or cellphone, which is Bluetooth® capable, looking (i.e. sniffing) for signals from these illegal skimming devices. This process is time consuming, error prone, expensive, and leaves large periods of time where an unauthorized skimming device can stay active in the store. Moreover, Bluetooth “sniffing” and wireless intrusion protection systems (WIPS) are a new network role that is poorly defined at this time.
Accordingly, there is a need for a technique by which the above described perpetrators of such as attack can be located.
The apparatus and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.